Pre-Raid Uncrushability: A Paladin Tank's GuideFollow

Contents

~ Introduction
~ Talents
~ Gear
~ Gems
~ Sample Build

Introduction

More and more Paladins are working their way into the Protection tree to start tanking these days. While there are excellent resources available here for these new tanks to learn the theory and techniques behind their role, I find gearing information on how to actually reach a few tanking stat goals to be lacking. At best, any guide for gear suggestions is a hodge-podge of random tanking gear made for all tanking classes that offers little insight on why the gear was chosen. Furthermore, there are some sample talent builds available in other threads but none of them provide detailed information about why someone would choose those particular talents.

It is the objective of this guide to bridge over these weak spots in Paladin tanking information, with suggestions and insights that are relevent to Paladin tanks. I make a few assumptions throughout:

• I assume you know what uncritability and undazability are and the importance of 490 Defense Skill
• I assume you know what uncrushability is and the importance of having 102.4% combined block + avoidence
• I assume you are not neccesarily geared to venture into heroics yet, though in some cases I will make additional gear suggestions for exceptional gear that requires some heroic runs
• I assume that you're gearing up to enter Kara

If you do not know what uncritability and uncrushability are, I suggest you begin with The Defense and Mitigation thread. Crushing Blows, The Attack Table, And How It All Adds Up is another excellent resource for information on these issues.

Talents

I have gone into detail on what talents are of use to a Paladin Tank in the following thread:

The Protection Tree: The Talented Tank

Please feel free to discuss my talent thread in this guide however.

Gear

I'd like to begin by making gear suggestions by slot, then I'd like to offer a sample build using what I consider the ideal (based on ease of obtaining as well as quality) build.

Head

Felsteel Helm (Craftable, Auction House)
Helm of the Stalwart Defender (Craftable, Auction House)
Tankatronic Goggles (Craftable, Eng 350)

Let's face it. There are a lot of helms you COULD use. Frankly, all of the others are inferior to the Felsteel Helm (unless you're desperate for a meta gem). Add to this the fact that ANY Paladin can grab a Felsteel Helm off the Auction House for cheap the moment they hit level 70 and it's really a no brainer. If you REALLY want to waste mats, the Stalwart Defender a smidge better, but come on... I really wouldn't consider it worth it. Of course, if you're an engineer you can ignore that whole schpiel and make some Tankatronic Goggles which will hold you into Tier 5 content.

Enchants:
Put a Glyph of the Defender [+16 Def/+17 Dodge] (Keepers of Time Revered) on it ASAP. Until you have the rep, stick a cheap Heavy Knothide Armor Kit [+10 Sta] on it.

Neck

Shattered Sun Pendant of Resolve (SSO Rep: Exalted)
Strength of the Untamed (CE Rep: Revered)
Steam-Hinge Chain of Valor (Boss Drop: Steam Vaults)
Mark of the Ravenguard (Quest: Setthek Halls)
Strength of the Violet Tower (Quest: Netherstorm)

Replace the Mark of the Ravenguard or Strength of the Violet tower with one of the first three ASAP, but they do work to get you started. The Strength of the Untamed is really easy to get, and is likely the best choice for most tanks that are gearing up still. Once you have enough gear to keep you uncrushable, the Shattered Sun Pendant of Resolve is amazing for its stamina and proc. Aldor receive +5% Dodge, and Scryers get a chunk of Expertise. For a Paladin, the Aldor proc would be far better in most cases, though high-end Warriors would love Expertise.

Shoulders

Spaulders of the Righteous (Boss Drop: Botanica)
Shoulderguards of the Bold (Boss Drop: Shadow Labs)
Nexus-Guard's Pauldrons (Quest: Netherstorm)
Merciless Gladiator's Lamellar Shoulders (PvP Honor Reward)

If you can get the Spaulders of the Righteous, do it. The Shoulderguards of the Bold are a nice piece too. Honestly though, the Nexus-Guard's Pauldrons give you more towards being uncrushable, so hold on to them after completing the quest for them in Netherstorm, because you may be putting them on for boss tanking. If you have all of the avoidence you need and really really want to be in all purples ASAP the Gladiator's Lamellar Shoulders aren't a total waste of space and actually offer some pretty decent Stamina and a bit of threat.

Enchants:
Put either the Inscription of the Knight [+13 Def] (Scryers Honored) or Inscription of Warding [+13 Dodge] (Aldor Honored) on them. If you have the rep and can afford it, put the greater versions on.

Back

Devilshark Cape (Boss Drop: Steam Vaults)
Cloak of Eternity (Craftable, Auction House)
Slikk's Cloak of Placation (35 Badges)

The Devilshark Cape is fantastic. While getting CE rep for your necklace, hope this drops in Steam Vaults. Until then, snag a Cloak of Eternity from a tailor. If you've run SV sixty times and luck just isn't with you, consider the badge cloak, Slikk's Cloak of Placation. It is superior to the Devilshark, and if you're geared enough to get badges it just might be worth it.

Enchants:
Either stick Dodge [+12 Dodge] or Steelweave [+12 Defense] on it.

Chest

Jade-Skull Breastplate (Boss Drop: Mechanar)
Vindicator's Hauberk (Aldor Rep: Revered)

Easy choice here. Most tanks will be using the Jade-Skull, and it also adds quite a bit more to being uncrushable. The Vindicator's Hauberk is in theory better, but by the time you want to start replacing Block with Dodge, you probably have enough badges for one of the new Quel'Danas badge chests which are FAR superior to either of these.

Enchants:
Either put Exceptional Health [+150 HP], Exceptional Stats [+6 All Stats], or Fortitude [+15 Def] on it.

Wrists

Sha'tari Wrought Armguards (Quest: Shadow Labs)
Bracers of the Green Fortress (Craftable, Auction House)

There are other half-decent options for bracers, including one from Netherstorm quests.. But honestly, with the ease in obtainting the Sha'tari Wrought Armguards there's really no need for them. The Green Fortresses are great, but expensive. If you have the money, consider them, but they are slightly inferior to bracers that drop off of the first boss in Kara.

Enchants:
Stick Fortitude [+12 Sta] or Major Defense [+12 Def] on it.

Hands

Felsteel Gloves (Craftable, Auction House}

Just get them. I don't even want to hear discussion about other gloves because with the ease of obtaining the Felsteels, no tank should be level 70 for longer than it takes to buy a flying mount without getting them.

Enchants:
Threat [+2% Threat] is the ideal enchant for them. Until then, you may consider a Heavy Knothide Armor Kit [+10 Sta]. Major Spellpower [+20 Spell Damage] may be tempting, but theorycrafting has shown that +2% Threat is more effective once you reach around 630 Threat Per Second sustained, an easy goal. Do not fall into the mistake of comparing these two based on your total Spell Damage.

Evidence:
Ialaman's Final Data
Ialaman Saying the Same Thing
The Raw Data For Spell Damage to TPS Conversions

Belt

Sha'tari Vindicator's Waistguard (Quest: Tempest Keep)

Another no brainer. There a slightly better belts that you can get in heroics, but they aren't really worth it. This will be your belt until you either get Moroes' belt in Kara or a badge belt. Still, a huge portion of your uncrushability will come from this piece.

Legs

Timewarden's Leggings (KoT Rep: Revered)
Felsteel Leggings (Craftable, Auction House)

Since you need the Glyph of the Defender anyway, you might as well get your KoT rep up and get the Timewarden's. They are marginally superior to the Felsteels. Still, if it's going to be a while, you can get Felsteels cheap at the Auction House. There's no reason any tank should not have good legs the moment they hit 70.

Enchants:
Put Clefthide Leg Armor [+30 Sta/+10 Agi] on them. You don't have to waste money on Nethercleft for these pants, but your next ones (probably the new awesome Badge pants) should definitly get it.

Feet

Flesh Beast's Metal Greaves (Quest: Mana Tombs)
Boots of the Protector (Crafted, BS 375)

Okay.. so you'll want to replace these Flesh Beasts pretty quickly after you get your foot into Kara, but there really isn't much for boots until then. If you're a Blacksmith, you can make yourself the very nice Boots of the Protector.

Enchants:
Stick Fortitude [+12 Sta] on these. There's no point wasting your money on Boar's Speed for these rather junky pieces.

Rings

Andormu's Tear (Quest: Black Morass)
Elementium Band of the Sentry (Boss Drop: Arcatraz)
Protector's Mark of Redemption (Quest: Shadowmoon Valley)
Iron Band of the Unbreakable (Boss Drop: Old Hillsbrad)

There are TONS of rings that you can use, but these four are all reasonably easy to obtain and can easily replace any of the others that you may have from Jewelcrafting or earlier boss drops. Andormu's Tear is almost a must. When you don't need Andormu's Tear to remain uncrushable, taking one of the other rings that offers more Stamina may be a wise choice. Hold on to it none the less, you can't get quest rewards back and you very likely will have to swap it in several times in the future.

Trinkets

Figurine - Empyrean Tortoise (JC 375, SSO Rep: Revered)
Guardian's Alchemist Stone (Alch 375, SSO Rep: Exalted, Sha'tar Rep: Revered)
Figurine - Dawnstone Crab (JC 370, Thrallmar/Honor Hold Rep: Revered)
Dabiri's Enigma (Quest: Netherstorm)
Figurine of the Colossus (Boss Drop: Shattered Halls)
Adamantine Figurine (Boss Drop: Shadow Labs)

There are a couple other decent trinkets for Defense, including one from an early Hellfire Peninsula quest. Most people will pair a Figurine of the Colossus (before you get the Libram of Repentance you'll almost definitly need this) and Dabiri's Enigma or Adamantine Figurine. Jewelcrafters can replace the Enigma with a Dawnstone Crab, or if Empyrean Sapphire is available, the Empyrean Tortoise is an AMAZING defense trinket. Alchemists get an amazing defense trinket too in the Guardian's Alchemist Stone, but it also requires Revered rep with the Sha'tar (for the original stone).

Weapon

Crystalforged Sword (Drop: Blade's Edge, Auction House)
Merciless Gladiator's Gavel (PvP Honor Reward)
Continuum Blade (KoT Rep: Revered)

Do people still use the Continuum Blade now that the Crystalforged Sword is around? Well, since you're going to have the KoT rep anyway, go ahead. For a measly 200 gold you get a better sword though. Now that S2 Arena gear is available for honor, the PvP mace seems MUCH more attractive. The S1 mace was nothing special, but the S2 mace is a solid leader right into Hyjal. Spell damage is critical here. You know all those really crappy tanks you've seen that can't keep aggro off of you when you DPS? They probably don't have spell damage weapons.

Enchants:
Major Spellpower [+40 Spell Damage]. Don't even think about putting anything else on it. You will get the majority of your threat from a spell damage weapon with a spell damage enchant on it.

Shield

Sunward Crest (SSO Rep: Exalted)
Dawnforged Defender (SSO Rep: Exalted)
Crest of the Sha'tar (Sha'tar Rep: Exalted)
Shield of the Wayward Footman (Drop: World, Auction House)
Merciless Gladiator's Shield Wall (PvP Honor Reward)

The Shield of the Wayward Footman will be your bread-and-butter until you get rep with one of the other factions. It gives a HUGE ammount to uncrushability, so don't be fooled by its armor or block values. The Sunward Crest should be your upgrade objective. The Crest of the Sha'tar is obsolete with 2.4, as there are BETTER rep reward shields available. Frankly, the Sunward Crest is superior (arguably) to the shield that Nightbane drops in Kara. You'll have it for a while. Again, S2 gear available for honor makes the Shield Wall very attractive in terms of pure effective health. If you somehow find yourself in a situation where you don't need any avoidence stats, it's a solid contender.

For a more detailed analysis of pre/early-raid shields from a Paladin's perspective, see this thread.

Enchants:
Stick Major Stamina [+18 Stamina] or Shield Block [+15 Block Rating] on it. You shouldn't need more Block Rating, and it's HUGELY expensive, so Major Stamina is probably your better bet.

Libram

Libram of Zeal (Zangarmarsh: Thrallmar Tokens)
Libram of Repentance (15 Badges)

Before the Libram of Repentance really, who cares. When you can start getting badges together, it should be your goal. It will be a huge asset to you for a huge portion of your tanking career.

Gems

If you've been following along with the gear listed, the only thing you should need to gem for is Stamina. There is no need to gem for Defense or Avoidence with the above suggestions, however if you want to cut a few corners, you can put in Regal Nightseye (for dodge) or Enduring Talasite (for defense). Pure gems like Thick Dawnstone (defense) or a Subtle Living Ruby (dodge) might have something to offer you as well.

Sample Build

Just to show you how it's done, this is my preferred sample build from taking the gear above. All gem slots are socketed with Solid Stars of Elune, and I have selected enchants from the options that I provided.

Head: Felsteel Helm
Neck: Strength of the Untamed
Shoulders: Nexus-Guard's Pauldrons
Back: Devilshark Cape
Chest: Jade-Skull Breastplate
Wrist: Sha'tari Wrought Armguards
Hands: Felsteel Gloves
Waist: Sha'tari Vindicator's Waistguard
Legs: Felsteel Leggings
Feet: Flesh Beast's Metal Greaves
Ring: Andormu's Tear
Ring: Elementium Band of the Sentry
Trinket: Dabiri's Enigma
Trinket: Figurine of the Colossus
Weapon: Crystalforged Sword
Shield: Shield of the Wayward Footman

Stats for a Blood Elf with a normal talent build:

Base HP: 11187
Base MP: 4097
Armor: 11944 (53.08%)
Defense: 495

Miss: 10.80%
Block: 28.56%
Dodge: 18.67%
Parry: 15.80%

Total: 73.83%

With Holy Shield up, that's 103.83% combined Block + Avoidence. We've successfully breeched 102.4% and we have 490 Defense. All of this was done with VERY easy gear to obtain. Assuming you have a decent population on your server (to get into the instances and to get the auction house items and enchants) it shouldn't be difficult to acquire this gear in a single weekend of WoWing, or a couple weekends if you're a little more casual. Many of us could probably do it in 1 or 2 weekdays.

Edited, Aug 19th 2008 2:18pm by Losie

Edited, Nov 13th 2008 1:27pm by Usagi

I left out most badge gear for a reason:



I included Slikk's Cloak of Placation and the Libram of Repentance because you can get an incredibly unluckly streak on the Devilshark and the Libram really is a major itemm.

There are no other posts on THIS forum with accurate and current gear information for a Paladin in a central location. The Defense and Mitigatin thread is the closest thing, and its gear section is a horrific hodge-podge of poorly classified gear. Great thread for theory, aweful for gear. It is far too generic and includes a whole pile of items that need not even be mentioned because there are better items that are easier to get.

There are posts that have done the same thing on other forums, Maintankadin being the most prominent one, however they are all grossly out of date (generally dating back to 2.1 or earlier) and may or may not offer any advice on things like gemming or enchanting.

Furthermore, I havn't seen any other post of this nature that actually puts a sample build together. I get lots of comments from people that I know in-game about how they may be following one of Maintankadin's gear threads, but can't possibly understand how to get uncrushable with pre-raid gear. To some (who havn't gotten a couple of those key pieces yet) it seems impossible at first. The sample build shows just how easy it is to do using ALL pre-Raid/pre-Heroic gear. It also illustrates how you can easily reach these goals with only gear and enchants, so that you are free to gem for Stamina at that gear level. Of course, when you replace your Defense trinkets with Stamina trinkets, you usually need to start diversifying your gems a little, but that isn't possible at this gear level anyway (at least until you get a Libram of Repentance, then you can replace one trinket with a Stamina one).

If you are interested in Badge/Raid loot however, I suggest you take a peak at
http://www.failsafedesign.com/maintankadin/viewtopic.php?t=2652 over at the Maintankadin forums. It is updated for 2.4 and offers some good gear upgrades to look for IN raids and with badges. Generally though, by the time you're into raiding you know how to use Atlas Loot, so gear lists aren't always needed passed that point.

This is a very nice list.

I would like to suggest a slightly different setup that I am aiming for for my prot pally to get ready to tank heroics. You will notice I put the Libram of Repentance on the list, but he won't have that until after he has tanked a few heroics.

You don't need 102.4% combined avoidance for heroics since heroic mobs and bosses can't get crushing blows.

I've looked into a few different setups for him (with the Libram of Repentance), but this is the only one that gets him uncrittable, uncrishable, and with somewhere close to 12.5k HP. I think with a decent group I could easily tank the first half of Kara and maybe even get Curator down.

This is obviously what I am working towards, so I can't link an armory. I have the profile saved on warcrafter.net. I know some people find it hard to read, but it really isn't. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Prot pally pre-heroic

Yea.. I considered listing what enchants I used, but then I thought about it... I've already given a breakdown of the pool of enchants that I was going to draw from and I'm already spoon-feeding a gear set-up, I don't need to spoon-feed everything. Just have faith that yes indeed, I didn't ***** with the numbers anywhere and everything was enchanted with a selection from the enchants that I suggested.

It's not like people will be copying that set-up exactly anyway, so they'll need their own enchants.

Also, I didn't put a libram because there is none in that set-up :D Libram of Repentance is not neccesary thanks to the Figurine.

sorry didnt mean to look like i was riping it apart. it is a nice gear list and lay out and the sample build is nice. i've just seen alot of gear list to reach uncrushable.

thanks for the link for the other form i'll have to check that out later. our guild only farming kara since we broke up still trying to find a higher guild to get my tankadin in.

I had actually meant to include the Gladiator's Shield Wall as an option, as well as the Tankatronic Goggles and a craftable Epic pair of boots whose name elludes me at the moment. I'll look into that right away, can't believe I skipped them when they were in my head from the start :D

The craftable boots I wanted to add because lots of people don't take tanking gear from their quests and then decide they want to tank all of a sudden.

I put Nethercleft on my Timewardens when I used them and it served me well for about a week until the Wrynn's dropped off of Curator. Then the next week I had the old badge legs.. but yea, no one is going to waste badges on the old legs now so it will take a LOT of saving to get to the new ones.

EDIT: And I agree with you entirely about the difference with heroic gearing. I actually started writing this with a whole bunch of other options with a little less avoidence and came up with a set that had more HP -- but the list was HUGE. That's when I added the assumption to the top that people are using it to gear up to get into Kara specifically.

Edited, May 5th 2008 2:01am by Losie

This is a very nice list. A little more straight-forward than the defense and mitigation sticky, which is good. Some people can't sort through the wall of text that is and get to what they want.. suggestions.

A question.. why didn't you include the Adamantine Figurine as an option? I would say it's better than Dabiri's for uncrushable and uncrittable which is what this thread is aiming for. True, it's an instance drop and could possibly never drop, but for people who took the other quest reward (awesome healing pants) the adamantine is their only other real option.

As for stickying this, I know the admins were already bending the rules a bit with 4 stickies, and I don't think they will let 2 pre-kara tanking guides sit on our forums. I like the thought of having this stickied and the defense/mitigation unstickied. Especially since you link it straight away in your post. Thels hasn't been around in ages, or else I would ask for his input on the subject.

It's either that or I link it in the FAQ which... no one reads anyways :P

Edited, May 5th 2008 6:19am by CapJack

Losie, thanks very much for pulling all this together. I'm an epicced-out Holy pally and love healing, but I've been very careful to squirrel away a half-assed prot set, using Thels's guide, in the event that I someday respec to Protadin.

This guide/shopping list is just about perfect for someone like me, who's not trying to earn their tanking gear the hard way. That is to say, gold/rep/badges/honor don't prevent me from obtaining 90% of the gear you've named.

I would like to second CapJack's suggestion though regarding the Adamantite Figurine trinket; it's got a rather reasonable drop rate as far as I could tell, and the on-use ability is likely to be more useful to most tanks than that of the Enigma.

Question for the powers that be: would it be possible to somehow merge this with the comprehensive Holy pre-Kara guide? (And with the ret one as well, if it would keep the number of stickies down).

Thanks again!

I agree you would need more HP for Kara, however there aren't really many pieces in heroics that fit the bill for pally tanks.

Using only the Libram of Repentance from badges I've been able to put together a set that provides uncrushability and uncritability and gives around 12.4k HP.

Subbing in any of the tanking pieces from heroics either leaves me short of the uncrushable mark or puts me in pretty much the same place.

A prot pally can pretty much get to where he needs to be to tank the first half of Kara with just quest and level 70 5-man gear as well as a few crafted pieces, as long as you are willing to spend 700g or so on the gear, gems, and enchants.

This is also a very good and easy to get cloak, drops off the first boss in BM the stam. is a little bit lower and there is no dodge stats. But BM is pretty easy and because it is the first boss you can kill him and reset if it does not drop. With a good group you can kill him 5 times in under and hour.


http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=27988;source=live


I had it with the full felsteel set and some of the other gear you list and was uncrit and uncrushable.

>.> I don't think so. +20 spell damage will provide more threat unless its single target+SoTC+400 spell damage or so.

Do not base the effectiveness of +2% vs. +20 Spell by the ammount of spell damage you have.

That's just wrong. Base it by the ammount of THREAT you're putting out.

Once you hit about 500 TPS (which a trained monkey could do) 2% threat becomes more effective than +20 Spell Damage. We dug up a page on Maintankadin about a month ago with the theory-crafting if you want to search for it.

Ialman might remember some of the gyst of it too...

Spell Damage does however have a place in a massive AoE DPS set -- for those time you just want to go and beat the crap out of Black Morass.

Edited, May 9th 2008 11:48am by Losie

Edited, May 9th 2008 11:52am by Losie

I got bored and dug up that info about Spell Damage.

Much of the credit for this information belongs to Ialaman and the other posters at Maintankadin, links will follow.


With maximum efficiency of rotations:

1 Spell Damage = 0.63 TPS
20 Spell Damage = 12.6 TPS.

2% of 630 = 12.6

Therefore, at 630 Threat per Second a 2% threat enchant would begin to yield more threat than a 20 Spell Damage enchant. 630 TPS is easily reachable, as a tank in pre-kara gear can put out MUCH more than that sustained.

Links:

Ialaman's Final Data
Ialaman Saying the Same Thing
The Raw Data For Spell Damage to TPS Conversions